


Creatures of Habit

by ttacticianmagician



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Other Golden Deers appear only briefly, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Slight Claudeleth if you squint, Some angst, slice-of-life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24990328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ttacticianmagician/pseuds/ttacticianmagician
Summary: "How about an arrow then? Like what Claude does all the time?" Lysithea chimed in while peeking over her textbook."No can do, miss." Claude glanced in her general direction. "I'd rather not have any blood on my hands.""Says the guy who fiddles with arrows every chance he gets." Lysithea rolled her eyes before turning back to her book.Her vocal displeasure didn't extinguish Claude's spirits. "Hey, it's not just fiddling! There's a very scientific method involved! And if you think arrows are dangerous, wait until I master the art of dagger twirling!""Daggers?!" Raphael's eyes widened at the mention. "How can you spin those?! They're too short and sharp!""That's only if you think of them that way, dear student." Claude smirked. "To me, daggers are just… less aerodynamic arrows."---Claude twirls his arrows, and Byleth notices.
Relationships: Golden Deer Students & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Creatures of Habit

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: Claude's little arrow twirling, kudo if you agree
> 
> I was staring at a gif of Claude's arrow twirling one day and wondered why he did the thing. And then this idea popped up, and wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it. Thank god it's only a short-ish one shot this time lol. I actually like how it turned out, so I hope you guys enjoy it too!

Byleth noticed a lot of little quirks of her Golden Deer. She was supposed to, she reckoned. A good professor had to become familiar with all their idiosyncrasies, either to accommodate them in battle or stamp them out before they became a real hindrance. 

Fortunately, the habits of her students were harmless for the most part. Byleth noticed how Lorenz held his right hand in front of his chin as he spoke, how Ignatz seldomly made eye contact first during a chat, and how Lysithea, in contrast to Ignatz, always stared unblinkingly at her conversational partner. She noticed how Leonie fought harder when flanked by male students, how Marianne was much the same way around mounted allies, how Raphael often carried food into battle to snack on, and how Hilda's 'encouragement' was louder and more enthusiastic towards men.

And then there was Claude. The strange house leader had so many quirks, Byleth didn't even know where to begin. There was the way he shot his bow, which during training seemed like the standard Alliance footsoldier form but shifted into a different, foreign form whenever he had to fight harder. There was the gold and blue headband he liked to wear occasionally, which wasn't fashioned in a style that she recognized. There was the two-fingered salute he did whenever he felled an enemy without getting hurt. There were the smiles he flashed frequently, to ease or to disarm, but not one of them reached his eyes.

But the most obvious quirk of them all, in Byleth's opinion, was his arrow twirling. While waiting for the next command, he would often hold onto an arrow up with his right hand, over his chest, and rotate it in a full circle by letting go of the shaft for a second and flipping it around with his fingers. And he didn't stop at one spin. He would keep on twirling his arrow until it was time to shoot someone with it. She knew of his little trick before she became his professor, having witnessed it during their first meeting in Remire, but she didn't care much about it back then. She didn't even pay any attention to it after she chose to teach the Golden Deer house, thinking that it was just a one-time occurance. 

But then Byleth saw Claude twirl his arrow during the mock battle, throughout the bandit routing in Zanado, and in the many skirmishes that followed. Worse, that seemingly innocuous twirl mesmerized her more and more as the days went by. It got to the point that her eyes were drawn to Claude whenever he spun his arrow around. And sometimes, he would return her gaze with a cheeky smile and a wink. When that started happening, Byleth couldn't allow herself to stare at his arrow too long, or else he might get the wrong idea.

Why did Byleth care so much about his arrow twirling? She wasn't concerned about his safety. Claude's habit didn't get in the way of his vigilance, as he proved one time when he shot a speedy bandit in the knee with the arrow he twirled just seconds before. It also didn't impede his other skills. Byleth once saw him twirling an arrow on horseback, with his other hand taking sole command of the reins. That day, she wanted to scold Claude for riding a horse so carelessly, but he actually knew more about horse riding than her, so her criticism felt misplaced. 

What else could be a reason? Byleth wasn't annoyed by his action either, since she would have told him to cut it out long ago if she was truly irritated by it. After much contemplation, Byleth eventually admitted that maybe she was just entranced by the hypnotizing motion, nothing more. It wasn't like it distracted her that badly in battle, so if she didn't dwell on it, her interest should go quietly away on its own.

Except it didn't. Now, Byleth started noticing how Claude twirled other objects around, not just arrows. He spun his pencil between his fingers during class, whenever he was bored and thought that his professor wasn't paying attention, and played with forks and spoons in a similar manner during mealtimes. The way he spun these shorter and less pointy items was somehow more fascinating than the way he spun his arrows. Claude could twirl pencils and forks and spoons continuously, without pause, his lanky tan fingers blurring into each other. Sometimes the chosen object would dance over the top of his fingers, sometimes it ducked under and weaved around his hand, and other times, he would simply spin it between two fingers, reminding Byleth of a rotating wheel. Most importantly, she had never seen him drop anything throughout all his impromptu shows.

One day, before classes started, Byleth walked in to the amusing spectacle of Claude trying to teach Raphael how to spin his own pencils. Although, he was more trying than teaching, because Raphael's fingers were nothing like Claude's. They were thick and meaty like muscular sausages, which suited brawling just fine but did no favors for this new hobby.

"Here, try holding it like this." Claude gently wedged a pencil right below Raphael's pointer finger. "Now, you want to use this finger to push it, but don't push it too hard or else-"

The pencil flew out of Raphael's grip and into the stone wall, where it broke. The big-boned student let out a frustrated groan. Meanwhile, Leonie dashed over to pick up the remains.

"You should quit wasting pencils like this!" She barked at the two men. "These things don't grow on trees!"

"Actually, they do." Claude winked at her. "We just sharpen them, then put some graphite in them."

"You know what I mean!" Leonie stuck her tongue out.

"Maybe Raphael should use something more sturdy." Ignatz suggested. "Like forks and spoons."

"Nah, I can't use those! Then I'd want to eat with them instead of play with them!" Raphael chuckled.

"How about an arrow then? Like what Claude does all the time?" Lysithea chimed in while peeking over her textbook.

"No can do, miss." Claude glanced in her general direction. "I'd rather not have any blood on my hands."

"Says the guy who fiddles with arrows every chance he gets." Lysithea rolled her eyes before turning back to her book.

Her vocal displeasure didn't extinguish Claude's spirits. "Hey, it's not just fiddling! There's a very scientific method involved! And if you think arrows are dangerous, wait until I master the art of dagger twirling!"

"Daggers?!" Raphael's eyes widened at the mention. "How can you spin those?! They're too short and sharp!"

"That's only if you think of them that way, dear student." Claude smirked. "To me, daggers are just… less aerodynamic arrows."

"I don't get it." Raphael shook his head. It looked like Claude was going to say more, either to explain himself or to mess with Raphel, but a loud wooden snap interrupted them.

"Ugh!" Hilda tossed the remains of her pencil onto the ground. Then, after realizing how unladylike she looked, picked the splintered pieces up and hid them with her stuff. "You make it look so easy, Claude! How do you do it?"

"Like how I do everything else. With lots of practice." Claude teased. Byleth knew that he only said that to annoy her, because if he believed in what he said, he wouldn't skip training so often.

Hilda figured that he was making fun of her too, and waggled a new pencil at Claude. "But seriously, could you show me how to do this again? No one else can spin these the way you can!"

"Aw, Hilda, if you want me to show off, all you have to do is say so." Claude laughed. He then proceeded to twirl an unbroken pencil across his right hand, guiding it in wide arcs from his index finger to his pinky then back again. And as if that wasn't enough, he picked up a second pencil with his other hand and twirled it the same way. The two writing utensils moved in a quick and smooth dance reminiscent of a pair of acrobats. Claude even managed to switch the pencils between his hands at some point. When he ended his routine with a flourish, half of the classroom bursted into applause while the other half impatiently waited for the start of class.

Byleth, for some reason, found herself aligning with the first half. She didn't clap, but she watched Claude's tricks with an intense stare that she couldn't retract when he turned around to face him.

"Oh, hey Teach. Did you want to learn how to spin pencils too?" He chirped with a toothy grin. "You could take a break from your job and let me be the professor for a day."

"No." Byleth replied instantly. Her refusal did nothing to diminish Claude's smile. But while they were on the subject, she might as well ask him a question that had been bugging her since day one.

"I do want to ask you about your twirling, however. Why do you do it?"

"Why not? It's fun." Claude began spinning a single pencil around and around as he spoke. The circular motion was mesmerizing but Byleth couldn't let herself get sidetracked.

"I wasn't talking about twirling pencils. You twirl arrows in combat. You shouldn't be having that sort of fun on the battlefield."

"Ah, you were talking about that." A brief look of ponderance crossed his face. "But if you noticed it, then the twirling did its job."

"I noticed it because I'm your professor. I'm supposed to watch you." Byleth paused as she registered the last part of what he said. "What job does your twirling have?"

"It attracts attention, obviously." Claude rotated his pencil as if it was an arrow. "People can't take their eyes off of my snazzy tricks, which leaves them open to my attacks or attacks from my allies."

"You're an archer. You shouldn't attract attention. Leave that to the vanguard."

"Didn't you once say that everyone should be able to fend for themselves though?" 

"That's not the point of that lesson and you know it." Byleth narrowed her eyes by a miniscule amount. "Also, your arrow twirling distracts everyone else."

"You mean it distracts  _ you _ ." Claude winked.

Byleth was sorely tempted to deny that right away, but such hastiness would only prove him right. She had to focus on the matter at hand. Her dark blue eyes turned to all the other Golden Deer in the classroom.

"How many of you are distracted by Claude's arrow twirling?" She proposed that question to all of her students.

"Well, I must say that it's quite unbecoming of a noble." Lorenz answered first. "The idle twirling symbolizes restlessness on Claude's part. A noble should strive to appear more dignified on the battlefield."

"Lorenz doesn't count! He always votes against me." Claude protested.

"I do have to admit that it is a teensy bit distracting." Hilda piped up next. "But not in a bad way! If Claude can take the heat off of people on the front lines like me, then all the more power to him."

"Hilda, that isn't a good thing." Byleth shifted her pointed gaze to the pink-haired lady. "As an axe fighter, you need to protect backliners like Claude from danger. Not the other way around."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But who says we can't mix things up once in a while?" Hilda rolled her eyes. Before Byleth could object to her flawed reasoning, the other Golden Deer interrupted her by voicing their own opinions.

"I don't think Claude's arrow twirling is distracting. Sometimes I find myself wishing I could do the same in the thick of combat." Ignatz sighed.

His remark incurred an incredulous look from Leonie. "Why would you want to do that, Ignatz? It's so… pointless!"

"W-well, it just makes him look so relaxed, like it calms his nerves during battle." He stuttered back.

"Hmph.” Leonie just shrugged. “Personally, I think that twirling an arrow just invites trouble. If something happens, then you end up losing a perfectly good arrow! Those things aren’t cheap enough to waste on party tricks!"

"I gotta say, I don't mind it either! If Claude attracts twice as many people, then I'll protect him from them all!" Raphael butted in with his usual loud voice.

Claude gave him a smile. "Aw, thanks Raphael. I'm glad that I can always count on you."

"Although I loathe to agree with Lorenz, he does raise a good point.” Lysithea was the next person to chime in. “Claude's arrow twirling makes him look like a child that can't sit still."

"Lysithea, I appreciate the support, but do keep in mind that I'm standing right here." Lorenz muttered.

The white-haired girl didn’t react to Lorenz’s quiet protest and continued on. "Even so, Claude has far worse tendencies that he needs to break first. So I actually don't mind his arrow twirling right now, as long as he gives it up eventually."

Meanwhile, Marianne spoke barely above a whisper. It took all of her professor’s attention to hear her. "Uh… I think… Claude should do whatever he wants... in order to feel comfortable…"

The choir of so many different voices was grating on Byleth, but at the same time, she took them all in with a calm pose. Unfortunately, it sounded like she, Lorenz, and Leonie were the only ones here that had a problem with Claude's twirling. If they were the group of Alliance lords at the roundtable, the motion wouldn't have passed.

Still, Claude opted to compromise with the minority. "On second thought, I don't  _ need _ to keep doing it if it bothers some people. There are better hills to die on, so they say."

"So you'll cut back on your arrow twirling?" Byleth asked. Getting him to acquiesce was easier than she thought.

"Yeah." Claude nodded slowly. "I wouldn't make for a good future archduke if I can't kick a silly habit now, can I?"

Byleth nodded back, believing that was the end of that.

Until it wasn't. During the next few training missions, Byleth noticed that Claude actually performed worse when he refrained from twirling his arrow. He was slower to react, missed his targets more often, and even dropped his arrow once or twice. Byleth wanted to wait and see if he was going to improve over the course of a few weeks, but after he missed a practice opponent he had a 97% chance of hitting, she decided that immediate intervention was needed.

"Claude, may I have a word with you?" She told him as soon as class ended.

The singled-out student shot a guilty look at his friends. Some of them were sympathetic, while others laughed and teased him about the trouble he was in. Claude pointedly ignored the jeers to give Byleth his full attention.

"What's up, Teach?"

"Your performance has been less than adequate lately." Byleth stated plainly. "Are you well?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling peachy keen. Maybe I'm just in a rut that I'll climb out of eventually, that's all."

"So your current predicament isn't related to our earlier conversation? The one where you vowed to stop your arrow twirling?"

Claude bit the insides of his cheeks and averted his gaze. He was on the verge of fabricating another lie, another excuse to assuage Byleth's worries, but she stepped in before he could come up with something.

"It’s apparent that you focus too much on not twirling arrows to fight well. So if you need to twirl, then do so. Do not let my words hinder you. I just said what I said because I couldn't face my own fascination with your twirling."

"Aha! So you were interested in me!" Claude beamed.

"... Please tell me this was not a ploy to get me to admit something." Byleth had to hold back more scathing remarks.

"Well, it wasn't intentional, but I’ll take it." His smile lasted for a few seconds before vanishing into thin air. "Really though, don't worry about little old me. Lorenz and Lysithea were right. Fiddling with arrows or whatever does make me look immature, so I should do my best to break that silly habit. You may think it's fine now, but that won't be the case when I get older."

There was a hidden meaning to his words, one that Byleth managed to pick up for once in her life. Her perceptiveness was thanks to some talks she had with her father when she was younger. She remembered with vivid detail how Jeralt would tell her to do this, or don’t do that, because it wouldn’t be as cute when she grew up. Right now, Claude’s words echoed those memories in an unpleasant way. So what if…

"How long did you have this habit?"

He hesitated before speaking up again. When Claude did reply, his usual levity had died down, leaving behind a naked sort of quietness. "Ever since I could hold a bow. I didn’t actually twirl arrows at first. I just played with whatever I could grab. Then it turned into twirling because it looked better than normal fidgeting."

Byleth tried to imagine a younger Claude, grabbing things he wasn’t supposed to grab, unable to stay motionless for even a second. Those conjured images usually came with scolding from older adults, especially if he displayed such restlessness during training. "And who told you that you couldn't do that?"

"Lots of people. My combat instructor, mostly, but the worst lectures came from my mom. She always yelled at me whenever she caught me, saying that I'm going to poke my eye out and stuff like that."

Byleth couldn't find the right words to say, so she just let out a thoughtful hum. Nothing she could tell him would magically erase the harsh lessons that haunted him since his childhood, but she should tell him something else. Like what? She realized for not the first time in her life just how difficult a teacher's job was. Only now, the problem student was Claude von Riegan, the leader of the Golden Deer House, the future archduke of the Leicester Alliance, and a man that usually never let his guard down. How was she supposed to comfort someone like him?

"And you still do it anyway." Byleth finally said.

"Yep. You of all people should know that I don't listen to authority when it doesn't suit me." Claude's cheerful facade came back with a brilliant smile.

"Good. Keep doing that." Byleth replied with finality. "Your foes don't care if you look childish when you twirl your arrow. They just want you dead. To survive, you need to do whatever you have to."

"That's all well and good, but the battlefield isn't just filled with enemies." Claude retorted.

"I suspect that your allies will let you twirl to your heart's content, if it will keep you alive." Byleth replied with a stern look. "A childish adult is better than a dead adult."

"That's… one way to put it. Yeah." Claude shrugged. "But don't you think it's dumb that I have to twirl arrows or else I can’t shoot straight? It’s certainly embarrassing for me, at the very least."

Byleth shook her head as hard as she could. "I don't think it's dumb or embarassing. We are all creatures of habit. In order to fight effectively as a group, we need to accommodate each other, not stifle each other. But we don't know if someone is being stifled unless that someone speaks up."

A loud silence grew between them. Byleth was glad that Claude was digesting her speech, but at the same time, the awkward pause unsettled her. So she was relieved when Claude picked up a pencil on her desk and started spinning it between two fingers.

"That means you have to tell me your habits then, right?" He gave her an impish grin.

Byleth returned the smile with a blank stare. He probably didn't lay this trap intentionally, but she still walked right into it like an idiot anyway. "I don't have any habits."

"Oh come on! I can think of at least two of them." Claude, with his coy smirk, was blissfully unaware of the dangerous game he was playing. Or maybe he was aware and actually wanted to push Byleth's buttons.

"What habits do you think I have?" She asked in a controlled tone.

"Firstly, you always hold your sword like this." Claude brandished his pencil over his shoulder so it pointed backwards. "And you hold your free hand out like this." He lifted his left hand up and near his torso. "It's a pretty weird idle stance, but as someone who can’t stop playing with his arrows, who am I to judge?"

Byleth said nothing. She already knew of her peculiar stance and the chatter that came with it. Her father had no idea where it came from, and tried to teach her better poses, but to no avail.

"Then, whenever you defeat someone, you swing your sword like this and hold your free hand up like this." Claude twirled his pencil before holding it behind his back, its tip tilted skywards. He pressed his other hand against his chest in a somewhat girly manner.

Again, his posturing didn't bother Byleth. "Those are not habits. They're part of my fighting style."

"Uh huh." Claude chose to interpret her denial as encouragement to keep going. "How about some habits outside of battle then? Whenever you leave your room on a free day, you always head right first. You also always go out of your way to talk to the gatekeeper, even though he has nothing new to report. And you always eat meals with two dining partners, no more, no less-"

"It appears that you took my lesson to heart." Byleth started packing up her things. She wasn't even going to ask how he noticed these parts of her routine, since she already knew how much Claude liked to snoop. "My pencil?"

"Here you go." Claude tossed her the pencil he used to demonstrate. She expertly caught it mid-air.

"I was just getting started with all your little quirks, but I guess I don't need to relay any more of them to their owner." Claude winked at her. "That was a nice talk though. I wouldn't mind having more of them in the future."

Byleth found herself nodding, although she ended up tacking on an afterthought before she left. "Just as long as you don't endanger yourself to get the chance to speak with me."

**Author's Note:**

> My beta reader said that Claude was calling her out because she always heads right first when exploring on a free day. Tbh, I'm calling myself out too because I do the same. What about the rest of you guys?


End file.
